Police tracked accused arsonists for weeks

Christine McConvilleThursday, February 07, 2013

Credit: Angela Rowlings

Mark Sargent

BROCKTON — The prosecution’s case against accused-arsonist Mark Sargent is a “lazy” one, based on “beeps” from electronic monitoring devices and “dots on a map,” Sargent’s defense attorney claimed today.

But the judge was unconvinced and ordered Sargent held without bail, awaiting trial on charges of intentionally setting a fire in West Bridgewater last week. His alleged accomplice and Sargent’s stepson, Jean Marie Louis, was granted $10,000 cash bail. If he posts bail he must wear a GPS device and observe a curfew, Campbell ruled.

Plymouth County prosecutors claim they can link the two Middleboro men to as many as 24 intentionally-set fires in southeastern Massachusetts since September.

Two Massachusetts State Police arson investigators and a Middleborough police detective testified in court about the police work that led to the pair’s arrest.

Troopers say all 24 fires were intentionally set by people in similar ways, spraying gasoline on the buildings’ walls then igniting them with a fire-starting log.

Authorities say they encountered Sargent in a car on the Scituate/Marshfield town line hours after fires were set in both communities. Using cell phone towers and other electronic monitoring devices, they said they tracked his movements for weeks.

Sargent and Louis were arrested in Middleboro last week shortly after a fire broke out in neighboring West Bridgewater, police said.

Middleboro Police Detective Robert Lake testified that when he approached Louis in the car’s passenger seat that night, “I immediately smelled what I believe to be gasoline coming from his person.”